Case Studies / R&D Management

SIGURD MICROELECTRONICS CORP.

Use ePM platform to establish a collaborative platform to streamline APQP process and increase New Product Introduction (NPI) efficiency, enhancing customer relationship.

Building context/challenges.

As a leading domestic IC packaging and testing company, possessing advanced equipment, technical capabilities, robust production lines, and delivering excellent quality and service have become the fundamental criteria for customers when choosing suppliers. To effectively monitor the quality and progress of orders in the NPI phase, many customers also place significant importance on whether the factory has a rigorous management system in place.

In response to increasingly stringent APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) quality control requirements and to establish closer cooperation with global customers, enhancing customer satisfaction, SIGURD's automotive electronics department actively seeks an integrated management system. This system aims to address the challenges it faces in current management practices. Simultaneously, it aims to establish a systematic APQP process management system to enhance transparency during the NPI phase, thereby strengthening the company's competitiveness in research and development.

In the past, tracking and managing work reports were done manually. As the number of tracking items increased, it consumed a significant amount of manpower and time resources.
The automotive department has long had standard APQP processes in place, but lacks a system to effectively implement and manage these process protocols.
The individual management tools or methods used by various PMs within the automotive department are inconsistent, making it difficult to standardize project management practices.
The department hopes to establish a knowledge repository by utilizing a system to preserve project history.

Solutions

► Implementing a systematic APQP management process.

By implementing the ezteamwork management system, we can comprehensively integrate project scheduling, workflow, deliverables, and output management. Through the system, we can clearly display the workflow, responsibilities, and progress of each department, establish a systematic management system for APQP management processes and team collaboration, establish a complete and transparent project execution model, and facilitate monitoring the overall project schedule.

► Establishing rigorous management of customer requirement changes

The system manages customer change request records, detailing the type of changes, the content of the requirements, and the confirmation status. Relevant units can assess the details of the changes and subsequent adjustment directions through this information. Additionally, it integrates a signature mechanism to implement the approval process for relevant members. After customer confirmation, the system records the change status.

► Establishing a standardized process mechanism for document and form review.

The system establishes a flexible review process mechanism based on the submission requirements of various documents or forms, including sequential approval (reviewed by direct supervisor/department head) and parallel countersignature (reviewed by project team members simultaneously).

► Establish an automated notification and checkpoint control mechanism to ensure timely reminders and checkpoints throughout the project lifecycle.

To enforce a more rigorous management system, ezteamwork establishes a diverse range of automated notification and reminder mechanisms. These include task assignment notifications, task delay alerts, reminders for process execution and deadlines, notifications related to various forms, and more. Through the system's automated reminders and alerts, along with the establishment of automated checkpoint controls, we ensure that each task is duly executed.

► Automatically generating delay report forms enhances the rigor of work progress control.

When tasks experience delays in progress, the system not only automatically notifies the task owner but also generates a delay report form. The task owner must complete the delay report within the deadline and submit it for supervisor approval, providing relevant corrective measures. This process effectively tracks the status of task delays and strengthens the rigor of progress monitoring.

► Monitor project milestones and progress to accurately track the status of NPI process stages.

The system can individually manage the schedule progress of each project, and project-related units can also use various tools provided by the system, such as Gantt charts, project progress summary tables, project milestone summaries, etc., to instantly grasp the project progress and important milestone stages.

► Automatically aggregating statistical charts allows for real-time monitoring of project progress and performance.

The system can aggregate data and automatically generate statistical reports based on customized criteria. With the implementation of ezteamwork, not only can it save the time and cost of manual data aggregation, but it can also provide flexible and accurate progress data. This assists SIGURD and its clients in quickly grasping and monitoring project performance.

► The system centralizes specific project experiences, preserves important project knowledge, and effectively traces the source of the experience.

The system allows the establishment of an important project experience repository through forms, and enables quick tracing of knowledge and experience sources through the interrelation of forms. Over time, this accumulation can build a comprehensive network of project experiences, serving as a basis for future project references.

▼ The digital framework for APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) early product development quality planning management with ezteamwork

New Product Development

Benefits of implementation.

Streamlining the operational processes of construction management
Establishing effective APQP management process SOP system
Enhancing transparency in the execution status of each stage of the NPI process.
Establishing systematic management to enhance the quality of customer service and respond to customer needs more quickly.
Improve the retention of project history and effectively establish a knowledge database.
The system automatically prompts and reminds progress, enhancing rigorous management systems and effectively reducing human errors.

SIGURD MICROELECTRONICS CORP., established in 1996, is an independent provider of semiconductor packaging and testing outsourcing services. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, equipment, and production lines in Taiwan and mainland China, the company offers comprehensive semiconductor backend manufacturing services to its clients.

Target Audience: Automotive Electronics Department

Industry category.

Semiconductor manufacturing industry.

Solutions

New Product Development